Date: 22 May 2010
INTROSPECTION OF A MUSLIM IN PUNJAB. /////////// THIS IS WHAT A PUNJABI MUSALMAN said in anguish after he saw the continuous murders and mayhem going on all over the Pakistani Punjab. He says, /////////// “I had a moment to reflect, why my country is in such turmoil. Education cannot even begin when girls’ schools are being destroyed and free thought cannot take root when fatwas to kill are being dished out. Democracy cannot even enter where democrats like Zulfiqar Ali and Benazir are assassinated, from where KILLERS go out to London, Madrid and New York to further Islam. //////////// “I made a short trip to East Punjab and saw women and girls without veil, burqa or purdah. I saw them driving cars and even scooters without male escort. With a friend I went into a gurdwara. It was enchanting. The priests sang the scriptures in captivating classical melodies and most of the words I could easily understand what they were singing. Worshippers came in family groups. Women and girls were not kept out as in our mosques to save them from lewd remarks and stares. ////////// “But I was in a shock. Where there was excellent religion there was lack of conviction. When I approached a Sikh priest with the question, “Why don’t you commend your NATIVE religion to those in West Punjab who have to face Mecca but not Nankana Sahib while praying in the language they do not speak or understand,” he turned round in shock and said, with trembling voice, as if sensing his own beheading, “No, brother. We do not commend our Faith to anybody. Be a “better” Muslim if you are a “good” Muslim.” ////////// I left disappointed. I had expected him to appreciate what I was saying and to tell me that the Punjab is fortunate to have her own NATIVE religion unlike Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan who have a religion from a distant land that is at odds with local harmony of soul and with native spirituality, folklore and morality. //////// I tried to visualise the Punjab and her people when the invaders first arrived, yelling “Allah Hu Akbar,” and started killing menfolk, plundering their homes and temples, and abducting and raping their girls. The natives had been taken by surprise. Their leaders, with plenty of supply of wine and women, had not bothered to notice when the Buddhists in Afghanistan were slaughtered and what was building up to the West of their own Punjab.. ////////////// I found an explanation for their tragedy. They were the ancestors of this very Sikh priest with a sword on his side and all the knowledge of previous massacres in his head and yet he had gone totally neutral and shirked from defending or spreading his religion while sitting on his own territory. Was he waiting for another invasion after which even Amritsar would be gone the way of Lahore? And would he be killed, converted or FORCED TO FLEE? Obviously such thoughts were not in the Sikh’s mind though half of the congregation listening to him had come over from West Punjab in 1947 as refugees. /////////////// I was not aware of any SIKH HOLOCAUST MUSEUM in East Punjab. So, how could their next generation be any wiser? /////////////// “I said to the coward, “Dear Mr. NoCourage&Conviction, if I become a “better” Muslim I shall be thinking of killing even MORE Kafirs like you.” //////////// “I did not enter into argument with him since like me, he, too, was brainwashed to regard Islam a “religion of peace” and good for me. ///////////// “I returned to Pakistan completely shaken but resolved to think for myself putting my own dignity above any Arab’s. ////////////// “I noticed the fact that my mother tongue is Panjabi and I have roots in this land that go back to the time of Sri RAMA and Emperor ASHOKA, a few thousand years before Mohammed saw the light of day. So, why am I forced to pray in Arabic? I felt ashamed and degraded. /////////// “Everyone from Mullahs to parents had hammered into my head the word “Submit”. That made me a moron. Now I wished to assert myself to be counted for what I am. I wished to raise my own language to be at par with the language of the Arabs. The bubble of Arab superiority in my mind finally burst when I read ANWAR SHAIKH’S excellent book, “ISLAM, THE ARAB NATIONAL MOVEMENT”. /////////////// “Instead of “Arab National Movement” I read “Arab Imperialism”. I concluded, Islam is nothing but Arab Imperialism and all the Punjabis are the slaves or coolies, doing the bidding of our Imperial Masters. ////////////// “In my Punjab children at school sing praises of Arabs, our mothers read Koran at home, our sisters dream of Arab lovers and our governments legislate to impose more and more of Sharia Law, Koran and Islam on all of us. Once we were proud Punjabis. Today we are again slaves. ////////////////// “I discovered great spiritual and divine books that were composed in Punjab, the cradle of civilisation in South Asia, and wanted to send KORAN back to Mecca where it was written to suit the local social and tribal conditions when the Arabs exercised great power over women and slaves, In the days of Mohammed the more the horses, slaves and women, the greater the Arab. ////////////////// “Mecca could produce no other book of note but Koran. In my own Punjab where Vedas and Gita were composed there has been a flood of literature due to her free thought and power of expression. For mankind, especially the Punjabis, Guru Granth Sahib ought to be the LAST Revelation by God on earth. ////////////// “Even Alexander of Macedonia who was attracted by the wealth of India entered Punjab 325 years BEFORE Christ. He was mighty impressed with her culture and architecture, universities and schools, freedom, equality and grace of her women, and the courage and chivalry of her men. He did not bother to enter Arabia. There was nothing to see there. ///////////// “Punjab, I realised, is vastly SUPERIOR to Arabia in countless ways. She is blessed with FIVE rivers while I do not know of even a stream flowing through Arabia. There is NO reason for my Punjabi to be subordinate to a foreign country that is far LESS developed- intellectually and spiritually. ////////// “The Arabs are the most UNFORTUNATE people on earth if they have not discovered the divinity of Guru Granth Sahib or the beauty of Bhagwad Gita and the Vedas. //////////// Punjab was not a famished, starving, primitive land to produce the counterpart of Mohammed Bin Qasim to go out to sack Mecca and convert the residents to Hindu or Buddhist Faith of those days. ////////// “Punjab had to pay the price for remaining peaceful. She was punished for forgiving her neighbours who repeatedly came for loot, rape, plunder and forcible CONVERSIONS. That beastly deed fell to the lot of the Arabs. But in no way should the slave’s tradition of forgetting and forgiving continue for ever in Punjab unless like our burqa from Arabia they, too, don’t mind seeing their girls in mini skirts and bikinis from Italy. ///////////// “I concluded, the root cause of our cultural, social and religious schizophrenia is the KORAN. It has grabbed the Pakistanis of INDIAN ORIGIN like the tentacles of a giant OCTOPUS. The escape seems impossible. //////////// Islam, for reasons one can guess easily must keep its followers in its suffocating intellectual fold by force, even assassination. (NB: Sharia prescribes the death penalty for, among other things, apostasy.”) //////////// “I would like to appeal to all the Muslims in WEST Punjab to think of ways and means of our DELIVERANCE from the stifling. misleading. crippling “Book from Mecca” that calls the other half of decent Punjabis “contemptible KAFIRS” (Infidels). ///////////// ”To me they are contemptible not because of their devotion to some NATIVE religion in India but for their COWARDICE and complete LACK OF CONVICTION to commend the same to any MUSLIM and ITALIAN on their own territory." //////////// -------------------- 22 May 10 ================== 000000000